Case Number 06514

Vera Drake

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All Rise...

Judge Joe Armenio admires Mike Leigh's powerful portrait of a woman who wanted to help young women.

The Charge

Wife. Mother. Criminal.

Opening Statement Our legal format fits perhaps a bit too well with
Mike Leigh's film Vera Drake, the story of a working-class woman arrested
for performing illegal abortions. Leigh respects his characters and his audience
too much to make the film a vehicle for competing political tracts on the issue
of abortion; it is, rather, a powerful drama about a family's trials, and a
subtle examination of the ways in which class privilege makes a mockery of the
concept of equality under the law.

Facts of the Case

Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is a fifty-something woman working as a
housekeeper in 1950s London. She lives in a small apartment with her husband and
two grown children, and is shown as something of a neighborhood humanitarian,
checking in on the sick and aged, inviting a lonely young man to her family's
home for supper and companionship. She also, unknown to her family, "helps girls
out," her phrase for the procedure with a syringe and soapy water by which she
terminates unwanted pregnancies. When one of her patients becomes ill, the
police are informed and Vera is arrested. The rest of the film deals with her
and her family's attempts to deal with the facts of her crime and trial.

The Evidence

The film's early sequences make it clear that the Drakes are poor but not
desperate; their apartment is small but well-kept, their family close-knit and
happy. Vera clearly takes pleasure in doing good, and in the daily rituals of
family life. In one particularly effective shot of the Drakes getting ready for
dinner, director Leigh is content to set his camera just outside the kitchen and
let the wholesome bustle and chatter of the family's preparations flow in and
out of the frame. A major plot point in this working-class idyll seems to be the
courtship of Vera and Stan's shy daughter Ethel with the lonely young man, Reg,
whom Vera had brought home for dinner.

Vera hears of girls who need "help" through a black marketeer named Lily, a
woman who seems rather transparently sadistic but whom Vera naïvely regards
as a friend. We see several scenes of her performing her procedure in the cold
and dismal quarters of poor women who have no other options; some of them are
nervous, some are cavalier, one is a hassled mother of seven who simply can't
afford to have another baby.

It soon becomes clear that for all of her caring and desire to do good,
there's something inadequate about the service Vera provides. She's not a
doctor, and when she's done, she simply leaves. The women have no recourse if
something goes wrong, no one to turn to for further advice. In one scene, a girl
becomes terrified when Vera prepares to leave; she can't do anything in response
except give her standard instructions and wish the woman well. In another scene,
a woman cries hysterically as Vera prepares her for the procedure. Leigh cuts
away and ends the scene before Vera says anything, suggesting there's not much
that she could have said.

The inadequate options open to the working class are contrasted to those of
the rich through a subplot involving Susan, the daughter of one of Vera's
employers. She becomes pregnant when raped by her boyfriend, and through family
connections and at a very high price is able to secure the services of a doctor
who performs an abortion. Like many of the women for whom Vera provides, Susan
is a sympathetic figure, a traumatized and overwhelmed girl, but due to class
privilege she's able to end her pregnancy in a safer way.

Leigh never turns his class critique into a study of the virtuous poor
battling the rapacious rich. It's rather a story of the ways in which class
affects the lives of a variety of people, some of whom are more caring than
others. The doctor who brings the performance of illegal abortions to the
police's attention operates from humanitarian motives, attempting to end the
practice of what he sees as unsafe procedures. The police themselves are kind
and never harass or badger Vera. The film saves its contempt for those who lack
empathy, such as the sour and exploitative Lily, and Stan's social-climbing,
materialistic sister-in-law, Joyce, who looks down on Stan and Vera for their
modest surroundings and lack of ambition. Vera's downfall, Leigh is saying, is
not the doing of one particularly evil moneyed interest, but the result of an
embedded class structure that transcends individual personalities and
motives.

Leigh is an actor's director, using the camera to accentuate the virtues of
his performers; he often uses the close-up to agonizing effect in the second
half of the film, showing Vera's once-cheery features locked in an expression of
inarticulate sorrow. As advertised, it is a remarkable performance by Imelda
Staunton. Leigh also favors long takes and a still camera, letting the mood and
pace of Vera's conversations with the police unfold without the distractions of
cutting. He refuses to provide psychological reasons for Vera's behavior. At one
point a passing line of dialogue informs us that she was raised by a single
mother and never knew who her father was, a fact that raises more questions than
it answers. During her interrogation a policeman asks her if she herself was
ever "in trouble," a question to which she's unable to respond coherently. Vera
also never presents an ideological justification of her behavior, repeating only
that she wants to "help girls out." Some might criticize this as an evasion, but
it seems realistic to me; Vera is not the sort of person to think in ideological
terms. Sometimes, though, her naïvete is expanded to troubling and
implausible lengths, as in her relationship with Lily: Vera is a woman of
limited education and often misplaced faith in the goodness of humanity, but
does she really lack the experience and instincts to sense that the black
marketeer is gouging her patients?

New Line presents Vera Drake in a widescreen edition, with no extras
on the disc except a trailer. Weblinks are provided for those with DVD-ROM
capabilities. It would have been nice to have a full-length commentary or at
least an interview with Leigh on the disc, given the interesting conditions
under which the film was produced; the budget was extremely limited and Leigh
worked without a written script (he prepared one to send to Academy members when
the film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay).

Closing Statement

I've barely scratched the surface of this rich and deep film that deserves
all the critical acclaim it has received. There's much more to say, for example,
about the varied and subtle ways in which the members of Vera's family accept
the news of her arrest. Those expecting a rehash of the abortion debate will be
disappointed; those who expect a powerful and complex drama won't. The DVD is
respectably presented, but without frills.

The Verdict

Verdict? This film will make any thinking person uncomfortable with
dispensing verdicts.